Building the Modern Data Center: A Supercharged Enterprise Software-Defined Data Center Deployment (SDDC)

In April of this year, I wrote a blog discussing the challenges of the epic and historic merger of Dell and EMC, which created Dell Technologies. The integration called for Dell IT to build a best-in-class multi-cloud application that would leverage the full suite of Dell Technologies’ products to modernize, automate and transform its IT operations.

And we are on-plan for success!

Let me share with you the strategy, technology and processes we’re employing to make it happen.

The Challenges of the Merger Integration Were Cut Out for Us

The Dell IT team were faced with integrating and modernizing the hundreds of Dell and EMC legacy applications that were running on traditional infrastructure in existing data centers, which entailed:

Different infrastructures

Different stages of transformation

Conflicting IP space

Varying people, processes and roles

Dell IT was tasked additionally with the undertaking of modernizing our global data center infrastructure, automating the delivery of cloud services, transforming application hosting to enable business speed and agility, and aligning people, processes and roles.

A Successful Merger Integration with the Digital Agenda and Our Customers in Mind

Like most organizations pursuing a digital agenda, Dell IT realizes today’s IT won’t succeed unless we change the way we do business and become an on-demand service provider with the automation, agility, and flexibility to give our users what they want; when they want it.

So we devised a comprehensive strategic roadmap to deploy a new cloud infrastructure as the bridge between the two legacy companies, while building the world’s best agile and innovative hybrid cloud platform and private cloud-enabled infrastructure services for our customers.

The Future-State Construct to Dell Technologies’ IT Operations and Modern Data Center

We required a cloud strategy to transform our more than 3,000 applications and leverage modern data center technologies such as software-defined storage, networking and security, automation, and self-service capabilities. This entailed:

We brought together all the aspects of our data centers, infrastructure and platforms under a single team called Cloud Infrastructure Services and built a brand new, legacy-agnostic multi-cloud solution, rather than trying to retrofit existing cloud infrastructure.

Figure 1:The Future-State Construct to Dell Technologies’ IT Operations and Modern Data Center

Architecture of the IT Transformation: The New Dell IT Hybrid Cloud Solution

Stabilization to enact get well plan for applications that will remain on legacy infrastructure.

PaaS is built on Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF), an application development platform designed to simplify writing and deploying modern cloud native apps. This service is for developers who want to write new apps or rewrite existing apps in a way that conforms to cloud-native design standards that maximize the use of cloud features. Using the cloud native framework results in a micro services-based lighter-weight app that can be readily moved on or off premises.

IaaS+ is for existing apps whose owners are not ready to rewrite them to meet the requirements of PCF but who still want to deploy them in a more cloud-enabled format to take advantage of cloud features such as software-defined storage and software-defined network. The bulk of our apps fall into this category.

Our IaaS+ is built on VMware’s vRealize Automation, a cloud automation tool. At its core, using IaaS+ means an app is still deployed as a virtual machine (VM) but it sits on top of a software-defined data center layer. It is therefore fully automated and leverages the software-defined abstraction that separates it from the hardware layer, enabling faster provisioning, more efficient data center space utilization and seamless hardware upgrades.

Figure 2: Dell IT Hybrid Cloud

A Continued Migration and a New Role

Over time, we want to migrate our entire application footprint from our legacy environments to one of these two new environments. However, accomplishing such a transition needs to be a gradual process. We are on track to deploy 25 percent of our infrastructure to the cloud by the end of this year and replace our entire current infrastructure with the software-defined platform within four years.

Central to our approach is tying application modernization to our end-of-service-life initiative. As components serving a particular app—the operating system or compute or storage — reach the end of operating service, our goal is to use that to drive the move of that app to one of these two cloud platforms – PaaS and IaaS+.

Leaving it up to app developers to determine which cloud service they choose is part of our effort to become more of a platform agnostic, competitive service provider. The idea is not to tell our users what they can and cannot do. The message we want to drive is around standardization.

In fact, at the end of our migration to the cloud, we want the users to be able to log into a portal (service catalog) and choose the services they need without IT even being involved.

Our IT effort will be refocused on enabling automation, writing code for new services, and monitoring and managing capacity. With a software-defined model, we can also better control capacity by leveraging third-party cloud providers as needed to handle demand surges and be more planned and prescriptive.

Benefits in Taking VMware Validated Design to the Extreme

In a nutshell, here are the resulting benefits for IT in leveraging the Hybrid Cloud:

30% lower infrastructure costs

80% lower provisioning costs

10-30% higher utilization rates

Infrastructure engineers focus more on services than components

The benefits for Business Units in leveraging the Hybrid Cloud:

Infrastructure Is managed as a utility and always available for consumption

Faster provisioning times

Self-service capabilities

Lessons Learned: Building the Modern Data Center

Here are some insights that might help your organization build its modern data center:

Embrace that building the modern data center is a challenge and difficult.

Adapt your team roles and structure accordingly.

It’s got to be the right fit – don’t try to force this on all of your legacy infrastructure.

Encourage adoption and instill a software mindset.

Keep the customer in mind – it’s all about the “service.”

Summary

Cloud-Enabled infrastructures are fundamental to the Modern Data Center design. Dell IT’s journey to a new multi-cloud has proven critical to our infrastructure integration as we continue our IT evolution as a combined Dell EMC IT organization. Across the IT industry, modernizing, automating and transforming IT to enable digital transformation and deliver self-service capabilities is essential for our survival in an increasingly automated, consumer-driven cloud services landscape.

[1] PaaS and IaaS+ phases include deploying standard infrastructure (MDC) to support all could services (PaaS, IaaS+, etc.); 25% of infrastructure allocated to IaaS+ and PaaS in FY19; implement Cloud-first strategy; and move to consumption-based model.

About Paul DiVittorio

Sr. Director, Cloud Infrastructure / Distinguished Engineer

Paul has been at Dell EMC for over 22 years in a variety of IT and Engineering roles and is currently responsible for IT’s Cloud Infrastructure Services organization. His technology expertise as an Enterprise Architect spans across systems, storage, data protection, data center networking and virtualization. During his tenure at Dell EMC, he has been involved in the architecture and build of many enterprise mission critical applications, including ERP, CRM, SAP and web platforms. He has also led key infrastructure transformation projects like server virtualization, converged infrastructure and data center migration. Paul is currently working on the next wave of transformation which is focused on leveraging Modern Data Center technologies to deliver Cloud services.